Are you ready to increase awareness of your business, enhance
your company image and boost your sales--all without breaking the
bank? Try adding an e-mail newsletter to your marketing mix.

An e-mail newsletter is a document you put together yourself and
distribute via e-mail, usually free of charge. E-mail newsletters
are either text-based (without art, photos or fonts) or HTML-based,
which requires a more complex design process.

Gary K. Foote's two-person Webbers Communications, a Web
site development agency in North Conway, New Hampshire, has grown
substantially as a result of its e-mail newsletter, The
E-Marketing Digest. "When we began e-mail
publishing," says Foote, "our business customer base came
90 percent from offline contacts and 10 percent from online
contacts. Today it's more like 30 percent offline and 70
percent online."

Any business whose customers regularly use e-mail can benefit
from this marketing method, says Leslie Speidel, a marketing coach
in Raleigh, North Carolina, who has launched four e-mail
newsletters.

You don't need to be a tech or writing whiz to publish an
e-mail newsletter, but you do need energy, motivation and
dedication. While e-mail publishing requires some time on your
part, the result is worth the effort. Consider the following
investments you must make:

Time to research the technology you'll need

Time to write content or find writers

Creativity to come up with fresh, useful content

Time to maintain subscriber files

Time to read and answer mail

Producing your newsletter should take from two to six hours per
issue, depending on the length and how much you write yourself.
Also, plan to devote about two to four hours the first time to
setting up a template. Finally, expect to spend about five hours
per week marketing your newsletter. The following steps will
maximize results:

Step 1

Write a mission statement. Before her clients launch
e-mail newsletters, Pullman, Washington, public relations
consultant Cynthia Freyer has them "determine what competition
exists, create a mission statement and determine how they'll
evaluate the newsletter's success."

For a travel agency: "Our newsletter covers issues
of interest to the business traveler. Sections in each issue
include tips to make travel easier, a humorous Top 10 list and a
profile of a major metropolitan area." A sample article:
"Atlanta's Best Breweries . . . Where
to `Head' After the Convention." Your mission statement
guides editorial content. Keep it in mind when putting together
articles for each issue.

Step 2

Tell the world. There are several places online to
announce your new publication:

Other newsletters and Web sites: Search newsletter
directories and the Web to find examples of other e-mail
newsletters. If they're complementary (not competing), write
the editors and ask if they want to offer your newsletter to their
readers.

Step 3

Start writing. You can do the writing yourself or
outsource it to a professional freelance writer. This costs $150
and up per article, but it saves time and can mean better writing.
Or try money-saving options:

Ask authors of previously printed material for permission to
reprint their work.

Ask vendors of complementary products or services to write
articles about their businesses.

Ask customers to write articles about how they've
successfully used your product or service.

Find writers or experts who will write for free to gain
exposure. List your publication in Inkspot (http://www.inkspot.com) or other
online writer's resources as a nonpaying marketplace. For a
frequently updated directory of writers' resources, visit
About.com's freelance writer site (http://freelancewrite.about.com).

Design a standard template to use for each issue. Start with a
header that includes your newsletter name and your business name
(for example, "Gorgeous Gardens, published by
Silver's Landscaping Service"). Follow with your name and
contact information.

Present a consistent format to your readers in each issue so
they know what to expect. Think about how your favorite magazine
includes the same regular columns each month. Dividing your
newsletter into regular sections also makes writing easier.
Sections to consider: "Expert Tips" (perhaps written by a
vendor), "Success Stories" (telling how a customer used
your product or service) or "How To" (explaining a useful
skill).

If you distribute your newsletter weekly, include no more than
five sections with three or fewer paragraphs each. If you're
distributing less often, you can double or triple that length.
Online newsletters can be delivered as often as every day or as
infrequently as once a month. Plan yours according to how much time
you have to spend. Include a copyright notice indicating that
because you own the publication it may be forwarded only in its
entirety. Also include a privacy statement promising you'll
keep subscribers' e-mail addresses private. (The Direct
Marketing Association will generate a free privacy statement for
you at http://www.the-dma.org/topframe/index7.html)

Step 4

Plan your distribution. Because your newsletter will be a
plain ASCII-text document, follow these formatting rules to ensure
the line breaks are even:

1. Put a hard return at the end of each line; each line
should be 65 characters or less.

2. Use special characters (such as plus signs and
asterisks) to divide between paragraphs. Subscribe to other e-mail
newsletters before designing yours to see how they are laid
out.

3. Carefully proofread your newsletter, and do a spelling
check and a grammar check.

There are three ways to distribute your newsletter: with a basic
e-mail program, a Web-based distribution program or custom list
software.

Beginners can use a basic e-mail program such as Eudora Light or
Pegasus Mail, both available for free on the Internet. Maintain a
file with all your subscribers' e-mail addresses in it; to send
the newsletter to your list, paste the file in the `bcc' (blind
carbon copy) field of the message. (If you paste it in the `To'
field, recipients will see a long list of e-mail addresses.)

A Web-based distribution program, such as those offered by
Listhost, Revnet or Oaknet Publishing, uses a Web interface to
distribute your list, either for free or for a fee. The distributor
maintains your subscriber list and handles requests for new
subscriptions. When you're ready to distribute, simply paste
the content into a Web-based form and press a button. You won't
need to consider custom list software, such as LISTSERV, until your
list exceeds a few thousand names.

Step 5

Keep marketing. The best way to promote your newsletter
without blatantly advertising is to become active on discussion
lists and newsgroups.

Discussion lists: Messages are sent to readers via
e-mail. The content isn't written by the editor or publisher;
instead, readers send an e-mail (a `post') to the entire
subscriber base. Most discussion lists have rules about what's
appropriate to contribute.

Usenet newsgroups: These are similar to electronic
bulletin boards. There are thousands of different newsgroups that
cover just about every topic imaginable. Visit http://www.dejanews.com for a
searchable database of newsgroups.

With all three groups, your goal is to present your expertise by
offering suggestions and asking informed questions. Create a
signature file you attach to each e-mail, briefly explaining what
your e-mail newsletter offers and how to subscribe. Each time you
post in these groups, your signature file subtly promotes your
publication.

Make sure online promotion is a continuing priority in your
business, says Freyer. Think of your e-mail newsletter as a handful
of seeds you plant with every issue. Eventually, the seeds will
grow, and you'll reap more sales than you thought possible.

Online Publishers is a discussion-based
newsletter on producing an e-mail newsletter. For a free
subscription, e-mail op-request@listhost.net with
the word "subscribe" (minus the quotes) in the body of
the message.

The Marketing With E-Mail Idea Feed is a weekly
tip from the author of this article about marketing with e-mail.
Subscribe at http://www.ideastation.com/feed.htmlShannon Kinnard is Business Start-Up magazine's
monthly "Browsing" columnist.